Objects in Space
by siredmund
Summary: She came to face-down in the reactor core of hostile research lab in an enemy system on an asteroid hurtling towards certain destruction. The realization that this was pretty much par for the course provided her with little in the way of comfort or encouragement.
1. External Forces

_Author's note: I started writing this just after I finished playing __The __Arrival__ dlc and before any new information about ME3 was available, so this is now a bit outdated, but that's what I get for not writing very fast. I decided to finish it mainly because I never seem to be able to finish anything. Perhaps I should have just left well enough alone, but I couldn't let it go. I have never indulged in fan fiction before, but the second half of __The __Arrival__ was remarkably similar to a scenario that had been rattling around in my head for a Virmire Survivor adventure, so when __The __Arrival __didn't end like I had originally imagined, I just had to write-up my version._

_Standard spiel: Bioware copyright this, that and the other thing. Rated M because Shepard has a potty mouth._

* * *

><p><em>The velocity of an object remains constant unless acted upon by an external force.<em>

_- Isaac Newton's First Law of Motion_

* * *

><p>"We're on approach to the Lambda Relay."<p>

The view-ports ignited with blue fire as the mass effect field arced out to meet the approaching frigate. A familiar sense of vertigo washed over the commander as the field enveloped them and sent them hurtling across the galaxy. The sensation was comfortingly familiar. It was good to be aboard a ship again.

"Shit!"

Staff Commander Kaidan Alenko, formerly appointed Citadel Council liaison under Ambassador David Anderson, more recently assigned as acting CO of the _SSV Thermopylae_, was hauled abruptly and without preamble out of his quiet reflection by the sudden outburst from his newly assigned helmsman. He blinked. Eying him askance, Flight Lieutenant Danika Adams coughed in embarrassment. Though by no means her first cruise, this _was_ her first tour aboard the _Thermopylae_ and under his command. Clearly she wasn't sure where the boundaries of formality lay, or whether or not she'd just tap-danced the Charleston all over them.

Shifting uncomfortably in her seat, she cleared her throat. "Er, excuse me. Sir."

Alenko hid a smile. "No, I think 'Shit' just about covers it, Lieutenant," he assured her. "It looks like we're in the right place after all." Dominating the ship's main screen was a massive asteroid that was, by all appearances, on a collision course with the relay from which they had just exited.

"Commander, the trajectory indicates it's headed straight for the relay..." She trailed off, surveying the multitude of screens blinking and flashing about her. "Scanners show the presence of engines on the aft side of the base, and they're accelerating." She indicated a secondary terminal where the ship's VI was happily projecting the path of the satellite and possible results of such a collision. Geometry equations littered the monitor, coupled with handy charts, graphs and an artistic representation of the impact he could only assume had come from the extranet. None of the information was encouraging, not the least of which being the artist's rather vivid imagination.

He leaned forward for a better look. "Time until impact?"

"Maybe an hour, Sir. It doesn't appear to be moving very quickly yet," she observed, eying the charts dubiously.

"With that much mass, it wouldn't have to." Kaidan sighed. "Bring us in. Quietly."

* * *

><p>A short time later found the commander in a small deserted docking bay on the starboard side of the asteroid. Looming above the archway of the deserted living area, the ominous clock ponderously counting down was hard to miss. According to the display, there were just under sixty minutes remaining until zero, whatever that may signify. <em>Most likely time until impact, though I thought I had less time than that. <em>

His pilot took that opportunity to chime in in his ear, _"You have approximately fifty minutes to get in and out, Commander, though I can't say I recommend cutting it that close." __So__ their clock is off? Why would they even __have __a clock? Who would put that there? This makes no sense._

"Acknowledged, Adams. What can you tell me about this place?" Alenko made his way to a nearby terminal, linking it with his omni-tool and scanning for manifestation logs.

_"Well, it's Alliance__,"_the helmsman supplied.

"That much I gathered. What's its purpose?" The terminal was a mess. Half finished entries clogged the desktop, most completely incoherent, and all logs from more than a week ago were suspiciously absent.

There as a pause. _"I can't tell, Sir. I don't have the clearance." _She sounded embarrassed. _"It's some kind of research facility under the command of Dr. Amanda Kenson, but I can't find much about what they were studying. Something they found out in the asteroid field. The engines are likely a by-product of the original creation of the facility and its relocation into a stable orbit, though that of course doesn't explain why they're only present on __the__ one side. Or why they're being used to propel the whole base at a mass relay." _Another pause, then the lieutenant continued, _"Sir, how do you even know she's down there? Intel last pegged her on Arotoht."_

He smiled humorlessly. "An illegal research lab in the middle of an enemy system on an asteroid hurtling towards certain destruction? If she isn't here somewhere, I'm going to have to seriously reevaluate my understanding of the laws of the universe." _And Murphy's Law. And Shepard's Law. _

_The door slammed shut forcefully behind them, dislodging dust from the cavern's ceiling and effectively cutting off their only method of egress. "Of course," she said with the __banality of someone __commenting on the weather. With a jerk of her head she motioned for Alenko and Tali to take either side of the ordinance while she took up station at the midpoint. The panels opened with some effort and the trio spent several moments in tense silence as each worked to diffuse their portion. After the longest eight seconds of his life, the lieutenant bypassed his last wire, exhaling forcefully and rocking backwards on his heels. He looked up to see Tali had finish with hers, with Shepard a beat after. She gave the device an experimental kick. "Shepard: one, Murphy: zero."_

_"Murphy can't only be at zero, what about that turian bounty hunter with the ryncol?"_

_"New day, new round Lieutenant. If you want the actual score it's probably closer to eight thousand nine hundred and fifty-three to seven hundred and two."_

_"Who's winning?"_

_She raised an eyebrow as if to say, "_you have to ask?" __"He is."__

_Tali looked back and forth between the two marines. _

_"Does this__ sort of thing__ happen to you often?" asked the quarian suspiciously, straightening up and wiping her gloved hands on her envirosuit. _

_The commander grinned ruefully. "Join the Spectres; See the galaxy, meet new and interesting people trying to blow you sky high."_

_"Just… just checking."_

As his pilot fell silent he returned his attention to the terminal, sifting through its contents. Its primary purpose seemed to be to monitor base communications. The last entry was marked as received from a private shuttle craft. Upon activation, his ears were met with a pleasant British accent.

"_Kenson to Project Base."_

"_Good to hear your voice, Doctor. You coming home?"_

"_Affirmative. And I've got Commander Shepard with me."_

He sucked in a breath. She was here. Or at least had been. Dread and relief paused briefly in their private war to conspire against him, setting his heart pounding painfully in his chest. For all his bravado and assertions to his crew, a small part of him, the part still accustomed to her being dead and not quite buried, hadn't really expected to find her. A smaller part wondered if he even wanted to.

The operator sounded almost as interested in that bit of news as he. And more than a little apprehensive. "_Shepard? Really?"_

"_Tidy up the lab. The Commander needs to confirm the artifact."_

"_Uh, right. I'll get everything set up for your arrival. Project Base out."_

The time-stamp read two days ago. He checked the log, but there were no more entries. Shepard had been here. And judging by the dire state of the rock on which he was currently riding, odds were pretty good she was still here. Somewhere. That ever-present lump reasserted itself in the pit of his stomach at the thought of their last meeting. There had been some words said that had had no right to ever have been spoken aloud. "Betrayal" sprang to mind. "Deserter". Not his finest moment. But what had she expected?_ She let me think she was dead for two goddamn years, and then just shows up out of the fucking blue with __terrorists__ in tow like it was no big deal. __Cerberus,__ of all people. What the hell was wrong with her?What could she possibly be thinking?_

_Maybe if you had let her open her mouth for longer than five seconds she might have explained it to you, smart guy, __reasoned the knot in his gut. ___Cerberus has a network of spies. They knew where the Collectors were going to strike, they even have the goddamn schematics for the ___Normandy, ___do you really think there was any way she ___didn't___ know you were on Horizon? Why the hell do you think she was there? __

__To save the colonists? __

__You are not really helping your case here, asshole. __

Alenko really hated that knot.

To say that meeting had not gone well was a bit of an understatement, but that had been one of the few times he had not been inclined to issue a _full_ report to Anderson. He was not proud of some of the things he'd said to her. Most of the things he'd had said to her. No, petty abuse and cheap insults had not made their way into the retelling, and that omission had come around in the end to bite him in the ass.

_"Uh, Sir, are you sure I'm the one you want to send in after her?" _I'm probably the last person she wants to see. Besides, _he thought darkly, _I'm long retired from my baby-sitting duties.

"_You spent thirteen months on her boat, Commander; you know how she thinks, you know where she'll go, you know what she'll do. The only other Alliance officer who can say that with any authority is currently ass-deep in alien politics and bullshit. And if nothing else, she'll listen to you."_

"_I'm... not sure that's true anymore, Admiral."_

"_I don't know what kind of spat you two had on Horizon, Commander, and frankly, I don't care. You are both adults and you're both marines and you will get the fuck over it, do I make myself clear? Shepard went in as a favor to me, I'm not going to leave her holding the bag."_

"_I... yes, Sir."_

And so here he was. There had been a time, once long ago, when he would have followed her anywhere. A time when he had happily done just that, though even then it had felt like a wild goose chase. But in the intervening years the universe had reordered itself and those precious few months of frantic chase seemed more like a fevered dream with each passing day. He could no longer place such faith in her motivations, unconvinced as he was that her strings weren't being pulled. The irony that he was still following her even now – literally if not figuratively – did not escape him. _More like clean-up duty. _Tidying up her trail of breadcrumbs, hoping - hoping for what exactly? An apology? The chance to apologize? An explanation? _Why didn't you take me with you?_ Even in his own head the question sounded pathetic. _Focus, Alenko. One thing at a time._

Tracing the path of emergency lights, he strode through maze of corridors to a set of reinforced double doors. Only then did he notice the hum, an energy resonance reverberating in his teeth that had been slowly increasing. As the doors slid open, he was confronted with the source.

Whatever he had expected to find here, this certainly wasn't it. A twisted metal object stretched tendrils towards the ceiling, alight from the center by a ball of blue energy. Whispers at the very edge of his hearing vied for the commander's attention as his thoughts flew back to another time when he had encountered similarly strange alien technology. _Just what is it with her and this stuff, anyway? _

_"It wasn't doing anything like that when they dug it up," Williams remarked wonderingly. She shrugged and turned away._

_"Something must have activated it," he mused. The artifact pulsed and glittered with some sort of internal power source, the surface alive with energy and emitting a strange, almost in audible hum. Focusing on the sound, he realized it was less like a hum and more like a murmur, just beyond his range of hearing. Moving closer, he felt a wave of dark energy pulling at his senses..._

He threw up a mental roadblock, derailing that train of thought. Even now, after all these years the guilt was nearly paralyzing, and high on the list of things he did not currently have time shifted his attention back to the matter at hand.

As before, it felt as though he could almost make out the murmurs. Now knowing better than to approach any further, he paused in the doorway, dread creeping up his spine. This was clearly the purpose of the research base and equally clearly of Reaper origin. Was this the evidence of invasion Kenson had found? What did it prove, exactly? And why was it out in the open like this? Surely a trained scientist would take more precautions with such a potentially dangerous artifact.

Kaidan's sense of apprehension intensified as he took note of the blood pooled around the base of the object, accompanied by other signs of a struggle. There had been a firefight here, but these pools were days old. Had the batarians followed Shepard here? Or had she come here to liberate the base? This "crashing asteroids into things" bit was well within their wheelhouse, but this was a batarian system, why would they want to destroy their own relay? To destroy the object? There were other puddles scattered around the room, some with scuff marks where bodies had clearly been dragged away. He briefly entertained the concern that one of them may have been his former commander, but no, a few batarians were no match for Commander Fucking Shepard.

His thoughts were interrupted as an explosion rocked the complex. _That's my cue to get moving._

* * *

><p>Inside the med bay he found more evidence of conflict. The place had been trashed, with bits of machinery blanketing the ground like fallen snow. Nearby was the body of a fallen doctor, datapad still clutched in hand. He gingerly removed the pad and played the last message.<p>

_"It looked like Shepard was waking up for a minute, but I guess it was a false alarm." _There was a crash nearby and the woman shrieked, _"Not a false alarm! Security!"_

_Security?_ _What the hell was going on here? _With every new bit of information he found, things became even less clear. Had they been holding Shepard here against her will? That was about as futile as trying to hold back the tides. Still, more misgivings stirred in the depths of his gut. Moving deeper into the medical unit, he found a screen still displaying Shepard's medical scans. At least, he assumed they were Shepard's. They were labeled "Shepard", though they looked more like something out of a science fiction vid, or a late 20th century comic book. Nearly every bone in the displayed body was studded with metal reinforcements and plating. Cybernetic wiring laced through the entire nervous system, and the neural scan was lit up with a tangled web of cables encasing the brain. Kaidan shuddered at the sight. She had more wiring than a circuit board. And what was that mass just under the cerebellum? He shook his head. _Cerberus_. He traced a line with his finger down a plated leg, wondering if the former commander was aware of just how much additional hardware she was carrying. _Must weigh a ton. _

Collecting himself, he turned his attention to main screen and set about deleting the records. No sense in leaving sensitive data around where any monkey could see it. _Though if I don't get moving in time to save this rock there won't be a computer left to hack._ He had the presence of mind to download a copy of the data before wiping the computer clean.

* * *

><p>More datapads littered the corridors as Alenko made his way deeper into the facility. He scanned each one, hoping for some insight into the recent activities of the base, uncomfortably aware of his narrowing window of time. He must be nearing the control room. A glance out the nearest view-port confirmed they were still on course to slam into the relay. <em>I'm surprised she hadn't managed to redirect this asteroid yet. Though it's just like her to pull through only in the eleventh hour.<em>

The next set of doors let him into a large room lined with blinking machinery that was otherwise devoid of movement. Much more recent signs of combat were in evidence and this time bodies remained behind. Human bodies, all. The ice water in his stomach solidified into a block as he surveyed the carnage. It was becoming increasingly apparent to the commander that batarians had had little to do with the events that had taken place here. He moved to the central console and activated his omni-tool. The screen displayed a familiar set of decreasing digits and he couldn't help but notice that that eleventh hour was well on its way. Also present was the course estimation and all online engines. There were of course no engines on the relay side to slow the asteroid's momentum. _Looks like it's time to get creative._

"Computer. Divert power from engines one through seven port-side to thirteen through twenty starboard-side. Try to angle this station away from the relay," he instructed.

"State authorization password."

"Of. Course," he sighed.

"Incorrect password. State authorization password."

"To hell with this," he muttered, switching his attention back to his 'tool.

"Incorrect password. State authorization password."

_She kicked the side of the console in frustration. "I'll authorize my _boot _so far up whatever passes for an ass in that pathetic mess of spaghetti you call circuitry you'll think it's your primary drive, you trumped up, over-sized toaster!"_

_"Password not recognized," sang the VI, clearly in no way aware of its present danger._

_Shepard let out a warning growl. "Alenko. Do your thing before I grind this self-inflated calculator down to its component atoms," she threatened, hand resting menacingly on her assault rifle._

_"Yes, Ma'am," he responded hurriedly, glad his opaque visor hid the grin he hadn't quite managed to stifle. A glance at the commander told him he wasn't fooling anyone, but her glower was tempered by the slight upturn at the corner of her mouth. She turned away, leaving him to "do his thing"._

_Firing up his omni-tool, he gave the computer a cursory sweep. The Virtual Intelligence was nothing special; cheap, civilian-grade and with primitive programming, it wasn't good for much more than asteroid mining. Funny, that. It did, however, have a large amount of encryption. An impressively large amount of encryption. No doubt that part was a recent upgrade. This attack was nothing if not meticulously planned. A short conference with his chronometer informed him he had little under an hour to crack the VI, which would normally be plenty of time, if they didn't have an angry batarian terrorist still to deal with. As it was, they did, so it looked brute force would win out._

"Unauthorized access to powergrid function detected," the VI accused. "Access denied."

"Alright, so you know that trick," he conceded, kneeling beside the computer. "I'd like to see you defend against a physical bypass."

_He knelt beside the machine and removed the front panel. The innards hummed merrily, drives twinkling with activity. He examined them speculatively. He could simple cut the power to the console and hope that would disengage the torches, but it was more likely that if the engines lost connection to the VI they would simply continue performing their last commands. Disconnecting the main drive would probably have the same effect. Maybe dumping the flash memory? If he could shut down all engaged programs, he could probably kill whatever was running the torches._

_"Take your time, Lieutenant," Shepard remarked dryly._

_"I think I've got it, Commander," he replied as he reached in and began bypassing RAM. _Don't kill the one running the OS... _The interface flickered once before resolving itself while overhead they saw the torch sputter out and felt the rumbling beneath their feet cease. _

_"I have no idea what black magic you just crafted, but good work, Alenko."_

_"Just a matter of releasing the right amount of factory smoke, Commander."_

As he removed the exterior panel, he let loose a low curse. Someone, in an attempt to prevent just the sort of re-wiring he'd had in mind, had filled the entire interior with quick-setting, high-density liquid packing foam. It would take hours just to dig out. With the air-cooling unit unable to function, the computer would eventually cook itself and shut down, but not before the whole station went hurtling to its doom.

"Computer," he tried desperately, "Who last accessed this console?" If he could hack someone's account instead of trying to brute-force his way past the security, he might have better luck.

"Former Lieutenant Commander Shepard of the Systems Alliance Navy, current operative of the Citadel Council's Special Tactics and Reconnaissance force. Colloquially referred to as the Savior of the Cit-"

"Alright, stop," he interjected before the VI could rattle off her entire service record. He'd have no luck trying to hack her password, she was prone to using random strings of alpha numeric characters, a hold-over from basic training. It was a brilliant tactic, if you could keep them all straight. "Access guest account and give me a status report."

"Project engaged. Current velocity 523 kilometers per second. Safety protocols disengaged. Reactor Core temperature 1,512 Kelvin and stable. Core meltdown aborted," announced the impersonal voice. _Meltdown, huh? Three guesses as to who tried to activate _that_, _he thought as he tried once more to access the console. _Shepard must have been trying to blow the asteroid before it could collide with the relay. _He swore as the VI rebuffed him once more. Her brand of 'covert' always had been light on subtlety and heavy on fireworks. _Why Hackett chose her if he wanted things kept quiet I will never understand. He must have been truly desperate._

With an exasperated groan he abandoned his efforts and scrubbed a hand over his face. It would be faster to find the spectre and use her existing account. _Why _had _the admiral asked Shepard? She'd made it clear that she no longer answered to the Alliance. And why would Cerberus let her off her leash? Did they want the research for themselves? _No doubt. The thought of the terrorist group in control of a Reaper artifact filled him with cold determination. He'd help Shepard stop this rock, and then he'd rein her in before she could cause any more damage.

* * *

><p>She came to face-down in the reactor core of hostile research lab in an enemy system on an asteroid hurtling towards certain destruction. The realization that this was pretty much par for the course provided her with little in the way of comfort or encouragement. <em>One of these days,<em> she thought dazedly, _I'm going to bite off more than I can chew. I hope today's not that day._ She slowly became aware of the sound of her pilot yelling frantically in her ear.

"_Shepard! Shepard, can you hear me?" _

"Unnn." Her first attempt to answer was unintelligible even to herself. It might have had something to do with the fact that she was having trouble pulling air into her lungs. It also might have had something to do with the fact that her face was still pressed up against her helmet, which was in turn still pressed up against the floor. Turning her head, she swallowed and tried again. "Un...fortunately."

"_Very funny, Commander. Where the hell have you been? I lost your suit's signal and EDI's reading an explosion on the aft side of that base of yours. Are you ok?"_

Now that was an excellent question. Her current vantage point, while severely limiting her field of vision, did offer an excellent view of an increasingly large pool of blood. _Oh. Not good. Probably mine._ The medi-gel function of her armor must not be currently operating; otherwise it would have already administered coagulants to her newly acquired injuries. Maneuvering an arm under herself, she managed to lever up to her side and then flop over onto her back. The parts of her spine that had recently and forcefully connected with the wall behind her made their protests known and her gasp of pain revealed several previously undocumented cracked ribs. When the red receded from her vision, she hazarded a glance down.

"Ah."

It didn't require a technician to see why her suit was no longer working properly. What was left of it. Aside from the usual and familiar liberal spattering of bullet holes, the armor had sustained significant damage from the explosion. Parts had broken away entirely and what was left was a road-map of fractures and dents. The entire lower right side was missing completely, the exposed flesh beneath slick with blood. _Huh. Maybe today _is _that day._ The thought brought neither panic nor fear, just an empty sense of resignation and the very faintest feeling of relief.

Grimacing with effort she tried to sit up, but immediately fell back as searing pain enveloped her and her vision blackened. She lay still, eyes clenched shut and breathing shallowly for an ice age before mustering the energy to try again. This time she used her legs to scoot backwards, pushing herself against and then up the wall. She dimly registered Joker's insistent voice in the background.

"_Shepard? Answer me! Are you alright?"_

Finally managing an upright position, Shepard closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the cool metal with a soft _thunk_. "N-no. It… doesn't appear that I am." Speaking was becoming problematic. She sucked a painful breath through gritted teeth.

"_What the hell does that mean? Look Shepard, you have to get moving. EDI says you've got less than thirty minutes before that rock of yours connects with the relay and none of us want to be around when that happens."_

_Thirty_minutes? There was no way. No way she was going anywhere, let alone making it to the _Normandy_. "Joker... listen to me," she panted. "We're out of time. You... have to go. Now. That relay... will take out this whole system."

The pause was so long she began to wonder if she had managed to speak aloud at all. Finally her pilot let out a strangled laugh. "_You have a sick sense of humor, Shepard. Now get moving, otherwise I'm sending Vakarian and Taylor in after you. We'll meet you in that rear docking port."_

She grit her teeth. "Did you... not hear me? I said go! That's an _order_."

"_Well then it's a good thing I have a well documented history of disobeying _stupid _ones, as I have zero intention getting you killed again. Once was more than enough. You can make it, you just have to hurry."_

She shook her head. Not this time. She wondered idly if the Illusive Man had another four billion credits floating around, maybe in an _it's-only-a-matter-of-time-until-she-blows-herself-up_ reserve account, like her own _it's-only-a-matter-of-time-until-one-or-all-of-her-merry-band-of-misfits-will-need-money-for-bail _reserve account. This time would probably prove to be more expensive. _Maybe he kept a spare Shepard around just in case. Why built one when you can make two at twice the cost..._

"EDI... do you read me?"

"_Yes, Commander, I read you." _The AI's smooth voice interceded over the channel_._

"Activate - Emergency Protocol - One-One-Eight-Two," she huffed.

"_Activating now. Emergency Manual Override initiated."_

_"__Overi__- ___Shepard, w___hat are you doing?" _

_Your job,_ she thought without malice. "- course for the Citadel. Anderson - full report."

"_What? No!"_ A note of desperation crept into the helmsman's tone.

"_Course laid in, Commander." _

"_Damnit Shepard! Don't do this to me-"_

"-sorry, Jeff. EDI - go."

"_Shepard! Shep-"_

She cut the channel, her head feeling oddly light. _Blood loss, _she diagnosed absently. _I'll take exsanguination over asphyxiation any day. Oh, except for this next part... _She shut her eyes as the room began to spin. _I'm going to faint. The galaxy at stake, Reapers in-bound, cosmic-grade explosions eminent, and Commander Fucking Shepard is going to pass out. This is almost too embarrassing to be real. _

* * *

><p>He found her in the reactor core, slumped against a wall.<p>

_No._

Sprinting the last few yards, he all but collapsed at her side, kneeling in the shrapnel that remained of her hard-suit. _Not now. Not after all that. _He could see now why she hadn't appeared on his HUD; the suit and all of its vital, life saving functions was clearly offline. There wasn't enough of it left. He fumbled to remove the gloves to his own suit. _No. No no no no. _Releasing the now useless seals, he carefully removed her blacked helmet. Her head fell forward, face pale and unresponsive. Tentatively he felt her throat, searching for a pulse. When she stirred at his touch he felt his own heart stop.

After their brief and impromptu hiatus his medical instincts kicked back in and he set about administering to her injuries. Noting that a) he didn't have time to muscle the unconscious spectre out of her suit before she bled to death, b) he'd most likely cause further damage in the attempt, and c) enough armor was missing to give him nearly full access to the damaged areas anyway, he decided to forgo removing the shattered plates and instead carefully widened the breach as the brittle material crumbled in his hands. _Armor's not supposed to do that. _Tearing away the underarmor beneath, he saw that her side had been flayed open and was bleeding freely. Fragments of shrapnel gleamed maliciously in the dim light as if they were well aware that this was neither the time nor the place to remove them. He'd have to seal her up and pray they didn't migrate far. _Unbelievable_, he thought dazedly. _It will never cease to amaze me what this woman can live through._


	2. Mass Times Acceleration

_The applied net force on an object is equal to its mass multiplied by its acceleration._

_- Isaac Newton's Second Law of Motion_

* * *

><p><em>-ard.<em>

The unsettling sensation that she was forgetting something plagued her even on the edge of oblivion. Something was wrong. She fought to order her thoughts, but her mind felt sluggish and unresponsive. Something important.

_Shepard._

What was it-

"Shepard!"

Her eyes snapped open and she jerked forward reflexively. Restraining hands forced her back as a familiar face swam into view. "You..." she said thickly. "F... figures..." Despite all that had happened, somehow it made perfect sense that he'd be here now.

As her vision reluctantly returned, so did the rest of her senses. In fact they were rather insistent; she wasn't exactly sure if hair could ache, but hers was certainly giving it a go. "How-" The words caught in her throat as searing pain shot up her side.

"Don't try to talk," came the voice. "Even your luck has its limits and I'd rather we not explore them right now." In answer to her unfinished question, he explained, "When you didn't report back after two days, Hackett sent me after you." He smiled faintly as he resumed his careful application of medi-gel to her lacerated side. "Finding you was easy. I just looked for the stupidest, most dangerous place in sight and after that it was simply a matter of following the path of destruction." Discarding the empty tube, he frowned down at his handiwork.

Willing her pain addled mind to cooperate, she watched with detached fascination as he mended her torn flesh. The rushing in her ears resolved itself into low drone and she became aware of a growing sensation of urgency tightening like a vise in her chest. Something was very wrong. How long had she been out? _Come on brain, work._

Something... _the relay_.

"No..." the world spun as she lurched forward again, "no time. You shouldn't – be here. You – have to go. Now." She caught passing hand.

"Don't be ridiculous, I'm not going anywhere. Now sit still." The hand extricated itself and guided her back to the wall, pinning her there.

"Kaidan – please," she huffed, "We're out of time – just go."

"Not going to happen, Shepard," he said flatly.

"You're not – hearing me. You don't – have time for this – _leave me._" Why didn't _he_ have an emergency manual override?

"Tell me," he said softly, his voice dangerously neutral, "is there some particular reason you insist on going down with every doomed ship you can find, or are you just naturally suicidal?"

The flat, empty tone stopped her cold. "Kaidan -"

"I'm still collating data here," he continued, refusing to meet her gaze, "but maybe you can save me some effort. If you're just going to run off and find some other pointless and spectacularly stupid way to get yourself killed, I'd like to know now if I'm just wasting my time."

She tried feebly to push his hands away. "Just go, goddammit!" she hissed around the increasingly large lump in her throat.

He ignored her clumsy attempts. "With all due respect, _Lieutenant Commander_, I don't take orders from you."

_"Damnit Kaidan-"_

"No." He stilled her hands, expression grim. "I'm not leaving you again. Not ever." The harsh, bitter edge in his voice was unlike any she had heard from him. Finally meeting her eyes, his own bore mercilessly into hers. She flinched away from what she saw there. _Coward. _

The anger and bitterness she had expected, the resentment and disappointment she deserved, but the hollow anguish, the tangled mesh of accusation and self-loathing – that was more than she could bear. _Goddamn coward._

The fight drained out of her, replaced by a cavernous void. Dread echoed faintly in the depths as she sagged once more against the bulkhead, letting her eyes drift closed as he resumed his ministrations. None of the rebuke in his tone transferred into his efforts. Painstakingly gentle as they had always been, she barely felt the brush of his hands as they swathed her side in antiseptic and gauze.

"Half your ribs are cracked, the other half are bruised, and I'm not going to attempt to count the bullet wounds," he reprimanded. "Not bothering to dodge today, I see."

"That's what... the suit is for," she quipped faintly.

He gave her a hard look. "Your suit is fried, Shepard. It looks like you tried to catch a warhead with your bare hands."

"My... gloved hands, actually," she countered, retreating behind a wall of flippancy. She offered her palms as evidence. Here too the protective plating had cracked away, revealing scorched and shredded skin.

Her jest went over about as well as she had expected. He scowled. Taking a proffered hand, he continued remonstrating. "Whatever happened here, you're lucky it didn't set off the reactor core while you were still inside. We need to get to a control terminal so we can reactivate the meltdown before it's too late." He finished with her hands and began gather his supplies. She noticed for the first time the area around them was littered with crushed tubes, discarded gauze and an empty syringe. _That probably explained the dancing lights in her peripheral vision._ "I'm out of 'gel," he continued. "We'll have to try to find some more somewhere; I doubt this will hold until we can get back to the ship."

_Wait, back up, what did he just say? Damn this morphine haze. _She looked at him blankly. "Restart the meltdown?"

He regarded her as though she had brain damage. Perhaps she did, she was pretty sure she'd slammed her head into several things that day. Leaning in to check her pupils, he explained, "Yeah, to destroy this asteroid before it hits the relay. Remember?"

_Destroy the — oh shit. _She caught his arm, ignoring the stab of pain the contact sent careening up her own limb. "Kaidan, listen to me. The Reapers are coming. As in, right here - right now. With that relay they can reach anywhere in the galaxy in _hours._ They're going to orchestrate a massive coordinated attack on the entire galaxy all at once; we can't let that happen. That relay _must_ be destroyed." She felt her voice steady with each fervent word, desperation and opiates giving her new strength.

"That," he struggled to keep up, "that could destroy this entire system. Shepard, there are hundreds of thousands of people here. There has to be another way."

"There isn't. Maybe if I had been faster, maybe if I had stopped Kenson and her cronies from sedating me for _two days_, maybe if I could have talked her out of suicide, maybe then there might have been time to figured out a another way, but I wasn't, I didn't, I couldn't, and there isn't. It's an unthinkable to reduce it to cold, impersonal math, but there it is. This system for the galaxy."

He shook his head in disbelief. "How can you be so certain they're coming here?"

"That artifact, Object Rho. It's Reaper tech, it spoke to me like Harbinger. Like Sovereign. It's counting down to their arrival." She gestured to the glowing digits. "We have to act before that timer runs out."

He tried to pull away. "And you believed it? Shepard, do you have any idea how crazy this sounds?" _About as crazy as the Beacon visions, which is to say fairly crazy._

As he attempted to free his arm she took advantage of his instability to pull him closer, forcing him down to her eye-level. "I'm talking about the lives of everyone." She offered him her omni-tool. "It can't pick up the vision, but audio works just fine." Activating it, the sounds of gunfire filled the room, but beneath that was a voice like one they had heard before. Even the recorded version caused the hairs on the back of her neck to stand on end. "I made the call. It's done. All you have to do now is walk away."

"And just who gave you the right to make that call?" he demanded.

She finally lost her temper. "You see anyone else here?" she snapped. She tightened her grip on his arm. "I would gladly let someone else make this decision. Someone more qualified, someone more informed. Someone _better_. But in the end there's just me, and I will do what I have to and not even you get to stand in my way."

"Shepard, this isn't right."

"No, it isn't. But right now I'll settle for less wrong."

She released him and he leaned back, his gaze never leaving hers. The silence stretched on for an eternity as he knelt there, eyes intent on her face, searching for something known only to him. There had been a time, once long ago, when his face had been so open, when the unguarded play of emotions had broadcast every thought that skittered across his mind. A time when there was nothing he could keep hidden from her, when there was nothing he had wanted to. But in the intervening years he'd built up a barrier between himself and the world, and now his face was as impenetrable as a cold concrete beneath her. _I did this._ She felt her chest constrict as she spent a wholly self-indulgent moment mourning the past. She wondered if she was going to have to shoot him just to get him to leave.

At last he looked away. "Alright, Shepard. If Hackett and the Council still have faith in you, I will trust their judgment." _But not yours._ "But you can damn well be sure that I want to see that recording when we get out of here."

She smiled sadly. "I'd expect nothing less."

The proximity warning chimed in the background, urging them to evacuate to the escape pods. "I think we've overstayed our welcome," he observed. "Let me call in the cavalry." He fired up the display on his 'tool, but attempts to hail his ship netted him only static; he sighed and rose, crossing the distance to the nearest console. "Adams. Do you read me?" Static. The VI took that moment to pipe up helpfully, "The communications system has been taken offline. All personnel are to report to the escape shuttles."

Alenko grit his teeth. "Damnit Shepard, is nothing ever simple with you?"

"It's a gift," she murmured. Brandishing her arm like a banner she added, "I do, however, have a map. Or is that cheating?"

He linked their 'tools with a few keystrokes and transferred the file. "I'll take what I can get," he conceded. He eyed her prone state somewhat dubiously. "So, can you walk, or do I have to drag you out of here?"

"Well, I did say you should leave me."

Suppressing a small smile, he took hold of her wavering hand and hauled her to her feet, one hand guiding the arm around his shoulders, the other snaking around her waist, careful to avoid her injuries. The movement sent pain lancing up her side, but it was a dull pain, wrapped in cotton and easily dismissed. _Ah the miracle of modern drugs_. Leaning on him only slightly more than was necessary, she let his proximity distract her from everything but putting one foot in front of the other. He was here. He had come. She tightened her grip around his shoulders. Here in this moment, nothing else mattered. Not even the Reapers.

After a few tentative steps, they managed to find a rhythm in their ungainly gait, and together they set off down the corridor.

* * *

><p>He was right; it did weigh a ton. Having bodily hauled his then commanding officer out of more than a few situations - she of course returning the favor twice over - he could say with no small authority that Commander Shepard's new augmentations quite rather heavy. Though she was doing her best to keep up, with every second her steps became more and more sluggish and she leaned more and more heavily on his shoulder. Her labored breathing rasped in his ear and her head drooped forward, chin resting on her chest. It was becoming clear to him they were going to need some external help. <em>Or a vat of medi-gel. Or both<em>. Readjusting his grip to bear more of her weight, they continued on.

Their progress was halted by the looming bulk of a set of reinforced doors. To an airlock. Glancing at the map, Alenko mentally kicked himself. Of course. The escape shuttles were mounted on the exterior of the base. Because _that_ made sense. But airlocks meant outside access. And outside access meant envirosuits. Hard suits, if they were very, very lucky. He glanced back the way they had come. Marking their path like something out of a perverse fairy tale was a small trail of breadcrumbs of shattered bits from the spectre's armor. The damage was far beyond the capabilities of his patch kit; Shepard needed a completely new suit if they were to have any hope of reaching the shuttles. Leaving her to catch her breath on a nearby bench, he went to investigate the antechamber.

Though the room proved to be tragically devoid of the medium armor of which Shepard was so fond, shoved into the farthest locker he discovered something better in the form of a discarded mass of light armor in familiar hue. _Oh, Shepard's going to love this. _

* * *

><p>"You're loving this, aren't you?" the former commander muttered ungraciously as Alenko helped her into the replacement suit. She leaned against the bulkhead as the latter eased her foot into a boot slightly too small. They'd foregone replacing her shredded body suit in the hopes of disturbing her injuries as little as possible, but the new, unfamiliar plating was proving highly resistant to meshing with the mismatched underarmor.<p>

Deciding discretion was the better part of valor the commander refrained from comment, tilting his head away from the irate spectre to hide a grin. The universe's sense of humor certainly didn't need any assistance from him, he reasoned as he silently reveled in the karmatic justice. The Sirta Foundation really did make quality equipment; they certainly didn't deserve the stigma most marines attached to their products, unfortunate color scheme aside.

"_It's very, um… pink," Alenko observed. Joker snickered into his coffee. _

_Williams shot them both a withering look. "Laugh it up, El Tee."_

_When they had met up with her on Eden Prime the chief's hard-suit had been so slime- and gore-encrusted he hadn't taken note of the underlying shade and between the subsequent fight to reach the beacon, the explosion of said beacon and the desperate evac of his unconscious XO, all unrelated thought had been quite effectively driven from his mind._

_In the tense intervening hours she had scraped, scratched and scrubbed the suit clean as they waited for news of the commander. He recalled her in the cargo bay attacking the plating with perhaps more force than was absolutely required, but if anyone had noticed her assault they didn't remark, no doubt assuming it to be a coping mechanism, or at the very least excess adrenalin. Now as they prepared to disembark onto the Citadel, he noticed for the first time Williams' rather unconventional choice of armor and he wondered if she had in fact been trying to scrape off the paint. _

_Shepard chose that moment to enter the bridge, stopping short as she caught sight of her ground team. "Whoa..."_

_The smirk that had been threatening since the chief had stomped up blossomed into a full-on grin as Kaidan busied himself with the console before him and Joker turned his guffaw into an unconvincing cough._

_Snapping to perfect attention, Williams executed a flawless salute and bellowed, "SIR, CAREER SOLDIER BARBIE_™ _REPORTING FOR DUTY, SIR!"_

_There was a moment of stunned silence as everyone on deck turned to stare at the magenta swathed marine. The silence was finally broken by a strangled choking noise coming from the pilot. Tearing his attention away from the scene before him, Alenko turned to see tears pouring down the helmsman's face as he doubled over, convulsing with silent mirth. As one, the rest of the crew dissolved into hoots and peals of laughter as Williams' face split into a toothy grin._

_Shepard, stone-faced aside from the ever-so-slight upturn at the corner of her mouth, solemnly returned the gesture. "Welcome aboard, soldier."_

If he recalled correctly, that particular set had been rather short-lived anyway, though through no fault of the chief's. The next stop on their tour of the galaxy had been Feros, with its rather acidic brand of fauna. Or was it flora? Regardless, when it came to Commander Shepard, the life of essential equipment tended to be nasty, brutish and short. Now that he thought about it, he realized that he'd not seen anyone in Phoenix Armor since his own suit had been trashed on Alchera. And with that thought his smirk melted into a scowl. _Best to save that line of thought for another time, when I can afford the luxury of a fowl temper._

He finished sealing her into the suit, tightening the last plate in place with perhaps more force than was absolutely required, though if Shepard noticed she didn't remark. Whether she sensed his change in mood, was quietly sulking to herself, or just conserving her strength, the former commander had fallen mercifully silent.

* * *

><p>The YMIR nearly got the drop on them.<p>

Space being what it was, the only sounds for Shepard to hear were her own labored breathing and the reverberation of the engines through the rock beneath her feet. It was sheer chance that turned her gaze at the precise moment to catch the flicker in her periphery. Shoving with both hands she sent Alenko and herself flying in the lowered gravity as hail of gunfire tore through the space they had only recently occupied.

Letting her momentum carry her to the ground she dropped to cover behind a nearby packing crate, crying out as the impact sent fire up her injured side, the movement drawing the mech's full attention. The flimsy protection of the metal crate shuddered and buckled under its attentions as she clung desperately to consciousness. _Stupid stupid stupid_, she berated herself. _You let a __giant mech __catch you with your pants down. You're on_ _fucking_ _point today._ From her prone state she was dimly aware that Alenko had regained his feet and was busy hurling all available boxes, and anything else he could get his biotic grip on, in the direction approaching machine. That seemed to do the job of distracting it from her, but now it was his turn to duck behind a canister while barrage after barrage slowly whittled away at the scant cover. As she watched a stray round punched completely through the thin metal, ricocheting across the commander's armor.

_Unacceptable_. Rolling painfully to her feet, she readied a grenade with one hand while dialing up her new suit's medi-gel and stims with the other. The grenade had barely left her fingers before she had hurled herself behind a column as the YMIR's attention swung back towards her.

Using the opportunity to launch her now abandoned and quite holey canister mech-wards, Alenko swore at her. "Damnit, Shepard, stay put! If you tear open your side that suit won't be able to handle it."

"Are you out of your mind?" she countered incredulously. "These boxes are shit for cover. Besides, you just_ t__hrew_ all the good ones away."

As if to prove her point, the far side of Alenko's crate gave way, the perforated metal shearing off like paper. She loosed the last few rounds from her assault rifle, then ran a quick inventory. One grenade, a handful of pistol rounds and half a dozen shotgun shells. _Wait, when did I use the Cain? _A rocket impacted against her pillar, dusting her helmet with debris. _Oh yeah. Other YMIR. _

Motioning for him to prep an _Overload_, she unholstered her shotgun and readied the last grenade. "That crate's not long for this world; get ready to move."

He eyed her close-range weapon suspiciously. "What are you-"

"Now!" Pivoting around the other side of the column, she chucked the grenade and made a beeline directly for the approaching machine. Cursing, Kaidan activated the attack and sprinted to the next crate as she covered him.

As she ran, it registered in the back of her mind that the last of the bulky shapes in the background were forcefully ejecting themselves from the surface of the asteroid. The shuttles. _Well Hell. _The communications tower was their only hope now. _To do what? Call the _Normandy_? I hope Kaidan has a plan, I'm all tapped out. _She ducked behind another pillar, narrowly avoiding taking a round to the face, then popped around the other side to fire off a volley. Alenko's _o__verload_ had taken out most of the shielding and her previous efforts had scratched the armor. It was just a matter of whittling away at the thing until it stopped moving. With a shotgun and eight pistol rounds. _This is the best day ever._

Glancing over, she saw Alenko was fairing better. He'd found shelter behind a concrete wall and was currently unloading his assault rifle into the beast. As she watched, he prepped yet another _t__hrow_ and hurled yet another canister. _Did the man ever tire? _She shook herself. _Focus Shepard._

The relay loomed ever closer in the background. _We're not going to make it, _she realized_. Not at this rate. _Another round whizzed by. _Focus, damnit!_ Her hands began to tremble and she became aware of a warm liquid pooling in the heel of her right boot. Glancing down she affirmed that she hadn't been tagged by a stay round. No suit breaches. _Oh. Fantastic._

Chambering the last two incendiary rounds into her pistol she gestured at Kaidan again. _Stasis._ He gave her a questioning look, but prepared the mnemonic as requested. _Going to have to make this quick._

As the dark energy left his hand she was moving again. _Twelve, eleven, ten …_ The mech had time to target her in its sights before it was immobilized, awash with blue fire. _Nine, eight, seven. Not close enough. _She brought the gun up to bear, braced with both hands against the trembling. _Three, Two-_ "Clear!" Out of the corner of her eye she noted Alenko taking cover as the curtain of dark energy fell away, and as motion began to return to the machine she placed two neat holes side by side in its optical unit.

The resulting blast lifted her off her feet and flung her back. _Close enough after all, _she thought as she sailed through the air. She clenched her eyes shut in anticipation of the landing, but it never came. Tentatively opening her eyes she found herself suspended in midair, held fast in a biotic field and face to face with a livid marine.

"That was your plan?" He flung out an arm to encompass the blackened patch of concrete that was all that remained of the YMIR. "Are you out of your tiny little mind? In what bizarro fucking universe is charging a goddamned heavy mech with a _pistol _considered a viable plan? You could have been killed! If there was any rhyme or reason to the universe you would have been! What the _hell_ were you thinking?"

"It worked didn't it?" she pointed out reasonably.

"Only because you have some kind of insane, reality warping mutant power!" The gesturing hand moved up as if to rake through his hair in agitation, but stopped short as he appeared to realize there was a helmet in the way.

She leveled her gaze at him. "Are you done?"

"You know what? No. I'm _not_ done." He made to jab her in the chest with an accusing finger, but was prevented by his own field. Heedless, he plowed on. "It's time someone beat some sense into that _magnificently thick_ skull of yours before you not only get yourself killed, but all those around you for _good measure_. Because one of these days the laws of physics are going to catch up with you when your merry band of terrorists and murderers aren't there to break your fall and not even _Command Fucking Shepard_ will be able to walk away from ground zero." He turned abruptly, stalking a few steps away before turning back to point disparagingly at her once more.

"This - this self-destructive impulse that urges you to run straight _into _danger instead of away from it like any _sane_ person would do may make you a great marine, but certainly not a _long-lived one_. How you've managed to survive this long I will _never_ understand." He waved his hand at her dismissively. "I'd guess you'd sold your soul to the devil if I didn't already know for a fact it belonged to _Cerberus_, along with the _rest_ of you," he added scathingly.

"But not even you can keep this up, Shepard. Can you really not see that? Look at you! That hard-suit is all that's holding you together, but does that stop you? You nearly get blown up in a reactor core, then before the medi-gel is even _dry_ you're facing down a heavy mech with nothing more than a _sidearm_. This is pushing, even for you!"

She let the tidal wave of words wash over her, the torrent of emotion that was three long years overdue. She let him rage against her for as long as she dared, but eventually she had to interrupt.

"I know," she said simply.

He paused mid-rant, derailed. "You... _know_?"

"I do, I really do. But this is a race against time, and we are _losing_. _Badly_. Today we bought some back, but who knows how much? I thought we had years to prepare, but I get brought back only to find that for two years the races of the galaxy have had their thumbs up their collective asses the whole time and we are _no closer to being ready_ than we were when I was forced to take a long walk out a short airlock. Does the galaxy need me around just to hold its fucking hand?"

"That's not what I -"

"I know I can't keep this up," she interrupted. "I'm not stupid Kaidan, I know I can't run from the universe forever. I thought today it might finally catch up with me, but I guess I get to keep running a little while longer. But it already got me once and eventually it's going to check its books and realize it already has my name crossed off, and then it's only a matter of time until it corrects its mistake. And if there's one thing the universe is fucking good at, it's getting its way in the end."

"You're not a clerical error, Shepard," Alenko snapped. "The universe doesn't make mistakes, people don't just spring back to life. Do you honestly expect me to believe that you were dead? That some Cerberus scientists have managed to do in _two years _what the rest of the human race has been trying for _thousands_?"

"I don't expect you to believe anything, Kaidan. Least of all me. I have my mission and I will complete it on my terms. I will fight, fight as hard as I can, as long as I can, and with all that I have and pray that it's all somehow, _somehow_ enough and that the universe at least has the common decency to let me drag the Reapers back down to hell with me."

"Shepard..."

"And if I don't make it that far, well, I've trained a good team; I'll have to trust them to mop up the rest."

"Your team isn't here, Shepard," he pointed out wearily.

She eyed him appraisingly. "You are."

"You…" he said finally, "you make it really hard to win an argument, you know that?

"It's a gift."

Sighing once more, he turned away from her again to regard their most recent battlefield. "I swear, sometimes you need a keeper."

"Well," she said mildly, "that position has been vacant for some time."

He turned his attention back to her. She couldn't read his expression through the opaque visor, but she could imagine the weary look behind it. She imagined that it matched her own. "You only have yourself to blame for that."

"There are many people to blame, not the least of whom being myself," she sighed. "Now if we're done stating the obvious, we really should be going. I have little desire to play chicken with a mass relay."

He shot a look at the offending object. It was looming larger and larger by the moment. "Right."

Setting her gently back on solid ground, he hooked an arm around her and draped hers over his shoulders once more. "I suppose it's too much to hope that you didn't just reopen your wounds, isn't it?" he asked with resignation.

She gave him a lopsided grin she knew he couldn't see. "Maybe a little."

He let out an exasperated breath. "Come on then. You've only got so much blood to lose." He half dragged her the rest of the way to the communications tower, where he hurriedly called up the interface. "External comm channel open," chirped the VI.

"_Thermopylae, _do you read me? Adams!"

Instead of connecting with his helmsman, the holographic display activated and the two were confronted with a familiar squid-like shape. "You have _got_ to be kid-"

"_Shepard,"_ intoned the display. The spectre stiffened. "_You have become an annoyance. You fight against inevitability. Dust struggling against cosmic winds. This seems a victory to you. A star system sacrificed. But even now, your greatest civilizations are doomed to fall. Your leaders will beg to serve us."_

She straightened, moving to stand squarely in front of the projection. "Maybe you're right. Maybe we can't win this. But I don't fucking care." She jabbed a finger through the holograph's center. "We will fight you regardless," she declared, "just like we did Sovereign. Just like we're doing now. Every inch we deny you is an inch you lost to 'insignificant dust'. Every inch is a crack in your bullshit 'inevitability'. Every inch proves that you are _fallible_, just like everyone else. However insignificant we might be, we will fight, we will sacrifice, and we will find a way. That's what humans do."

"_Know this as you die in vain. Your time will come. Your species will fall. Prepare yourselves for the Arrival." _The display flickered out as the comm tower came online.

Bracing herself against the console, she raised an eyebrow at him. "How's that for proof?"

* * *

><p>"<em>Commander? Commander, are you there?"<em>

Cupping his hand to his ear, he responded, "Adams! We need a pick-up, it's going to be close!" His gaze flicking to the faltering spectre, he added, "have the med team standing by."

"_On it, Sir! On the bright side, the longer you take to get here the less distance we have to travel to get to the relay."_

Alenko grimaced. "Hilarious, lieutenant."

"_I do what I can, Sir,"_ she responded, her tone droll. _Smart ass pilots._

The bulk of the _Thermopylae _swung into view as the commanders turned from the tower. Together they lurched for the open bay, one all but carrying the other. Heaving his charge the last few feet into the entry, Alenko jammed the hatch lock with his elbow in the same motion. "Adams! Get us out of here!"

"_Aye aye, Sir!"_

He staggered under the combined force of acceleration and Shepard's knees buckling. He caught her as she slumped against him, head lolling forward to thud softly against his armor.

"Hey, stay with me," he pleaded as he eased her to the deck.

"Sorry," she mumbled into his shoulder. Her free hand was pressing something into his. Her omni-tool. "Take this... to Anderson. And tell that... turian councilor to eat a dick."

He closed his hand around hers as the decon cycle concluded and his crew swarmed in around them, shifting the spectre on to the waiting stretcher. "Tell him yourself."


	3. Reaction

_Sorry for the delay in the release of this chapter, a series of really irritating and unfortunate events pretty much shot my desire to write point-blank in the face, but I eventually dragged it kicking and screaming back from the edge of the abyss. Also I have no internet. _

* * *

><p><em>For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.<em>

_- Isaac Newton's Third Law of Motion_

* * *

><p>He was aware that he was brooding. He was also aware that there was nothing in this situation he could do to help, and in fact quite a lot he could do to hinder were he to insist on helping anyway. He was a field medic, not a surgeon; the best way he could assist his team was by staying out from under foot and allowing them to do their jobs. He'd done his part, now it was time to let them do theirs. Of all this he was fully aware, but that awareness did little to alleviate the debilitating feeling of helplessness.<p>

After the medical team rushed Shepard to the infirmary Alenko had hovered inside, getting in the way and terrifying his new staff until his XO had tactfully pointed out that Admiral Hackett would be expecting a full report of the events leading up to the first human spectre needing to have most of her hard-suit surgically removed – not that this was such a rare occurrence for Shepard, but the Alliance preferred these incidents to be well documented.

So, taking the less-than-subtle hint, he had removed himself to his quarters, where he'd spent the next few hours alternating between pacing the confines of the small cabin and staring unseeing at the bulkhead. The half-started report glowed sullenly at him from where he'd tossed it earlier, having given up all pretense of work.

Eventually he realized he needed a better distraction than slowly wearing a grove through his deck. At that thought he turned on his heel mid-stride and crossed the room to where Shepard's omni-tool lay alongside his incomplete report. He'd have much preferred to wait for her to walk him through the pertinent files herself, rather than casting about the hard drive trying to make sense of her filing system, but they were less than half a day from the Citadel and there was a good possibility the _Thermopylae_ would make it to the station before the injured spectre regained consciousness. If she regained consciousness. _Enough._

Picking up the deactivated band, he was surprised to note it was the same model as the one she had used on the SR1. It was obvious to him this was not the original, as that one had been nearly destroyed – half crushed along with the attached arm – by a hunk of Sovereign during the attack on the Citadel. He'd repaired that one for her – rather than point out that most people would have simply replaced it – a project that had taken nigh as long to complete as it had for the bones in her wrist to work themselves back into a cohesive unit. After weeks of careful surgery both arm and 'tool had been cleared for active duty, though neither were completely unmarred. This device bore none of those scars. He wondered what had happened to that band.

It was just like her to use an out-dated model. _Probably never bothered to learn a new OS, _he mused. Activating it he could see this one had been heavily modified in order to render it compatible with the demands of modern software. No doubt by Tali or Garrus; while absolutely brilliant when it came to explosives – be it their diffusion, distribution, or detonation - Shepard was rubbish when it came to electronics and software. That's why she had techs. That's why she had had him.

Reigning in his errant thoughts, he brought his focus back to the 'tool. So what else on here did she want him to see? Incriminating info on Cerberus was probably a bit much to hope for. He didn't get much farther than the main screen before the word Horizon caught his eye. He winced. On the list of things he'd rather not ever revisit, the conversation they'd shared on that colony ranked fairly high. Right above his psych evaluation post-Alchera and right below the funeral. The file was, of course, a message. Addressed to him. His hand hovered over the interface, throat suddenly dry as he stared at the file. _Why now?_

He knew he should leave well enough alone. He knew he had no right to prowl through her personal files like a jealous ex-boyfriend desperate for some mention of his name, some insight into her thoughts. But all those months without a reply... In his more forgiving moments he had begun to wonder if she'd even received his message at all. Maybe Cerberus was filtering her mail, or maybe she had been unable to respond. In his less forgiving moments he had begun to wonder if she just didn't care enough to reply. And now here it was, that answer he had longed for with one breath and dreaded with the next. He should leave well enough alone. She hadn't sent it, she didn't mean for him to see it.

But she was the one who had given him the 'tool_. Yes,_ he thought scathingly,_ because this is exactly what she wanted me to deliver to Anderson. Long over-due replies to ambiguous _maybe's_ and _I don't know's._ Brilliant._

Before he could over-think it any longer, he opened the log.

It was empty.

_Seriously?_

He stared a the empty screen in confusion for a moment before checking the meta-data. Last modified less than a week ago. Brows furrowed, he called up the entry again. Nothing.

_Well that was anticlimactic. _He was surprised by his disappointment. Well, what had he expected? She hadn't sent it, after all. But what was this? Why bother to respond months after the fact, only to save a blank document? Why would she keep an empty log?

Calling up the history, he saw it had been previously saved eleven days ago. Now thoroughly intrigued, he brought up the modification log. One hundred and twenty-seven changes. _One hundred and twenty-seven? What _is _this? _He keyed in the restore command and characters flooded the screen.

_Kaidan,_

_We go through the relay in four hours. Last chance I may ever get and I still don't know what the fuck to say to you. Maybe saying nothing is best. Anything now would probably be too little, too late._

_I know I asked you to come with me, but now I'm glad you didn't. Honestly, I don't know if we're coming back from thi-_

_-Message deleted._

Kaidan blinked. _What the hell was that? That's it? _He hadn't exactly expected a outpouring of emotion and tearful confessions, but he had expected _something _more than "I'm glad I left you behind." Something beyond... what? What was this? Resignation? Weariness? Frowning, he retrieved the previous log.

_They took my crew. _

Wait, _what?_

_They took my fucking crew. _

_Waltzed right onto my own goddamned ship and snatched them right off my own goddamned deck. The men and women who counted on me to protect them, and they're not even safe on their own ship, in their own beds. What the fuck am I doing if I can't even keep my own people safe? I -_

_-Message deleted._

Dazed, he read through the draft again. Who were "they"? The Collectors? He'd read the report about the Collector ship, but it had only mentioned rescued civilians, he had assumed they had been the colonists. Her own team had been abducted? He let out a low whistle. No wonder she'd plowed head-long into that relay. No one threatened Shepard's people and lived to see the morning. Not even the Collectors, it seemed. He almost felt sorry for them.

_Dear Kaidan,_

_Did you know the Collectors used to be Protheans? The Reapers fucked them up something proper, they look nothing like those status we found on Ilos. Ilos. Christ. I -_

_-Message deleted._

They were all like that. Message after fragmented message; some pages long, some barely started, and more often than not just a few scant words before the reply had been terminated. He poured over each one.

_Hey Asshole -_

_Dear Kaidan -_

_Commander Alenko -_

_K -_

_Fuck off -_

_So -_

_Hey -_

– _Tell me, do you have to pull your head out of your ass to breathe, or do you have a secondary O2 line surgically implanted up your -_

– _memorial on Alchera_ _at the weapons station. It seemed fitting, and it's in full view of my poor Mako. You'll never believe me, but the damned thing made it through without a single scratch. I shit you not. Even landed upright. Garrus wouldn't let me take it -_

– _Attached you will find a full report of all Cerberus activity I've unearthed in the Terminus Systems -_

– _Could really use you here about n-_

– _If I needed a self-righteous dipshit to judge my every move I'd talk to Udin-_

– _got them from Hackett, don't ask me how. It didn't feel right to wear them, not to mention a bit too prophetic, tags of a dead woman and all. I keep them on my desk next to my old helmet, speaking of morbid. Found that on Alchera. I guess it wasn't on my head when they -_

– _Look, I'm sorry -_

Hours later his head was swimming when he finally surfaced for air. Letting the band slip through numb fingers, he leaned back to rest his head on the bulkhead, the heels of both hands digging into his eyes. _I guess this explains why I never got an answer. _At the time it had stuck him as odd, when he wasn't too busy allowing self-pity to skip stones down the chasm the destruction of the _Normandy_ had rent between his life and his reality,that he had received no reply at all. She always had something to say. Even if it was the wrong thing, even if it made things worse, even if it was wildly inappropriate, off-color, or down-right offensive, rare was the day when Commander Fucking Shepard was struck dumb.

Now at last he had her response and he still didn't know what it meant. It occurred to him that maybe she didn't know what it meant either. Maybe it meant the unflappable Commander Shepard was just as conflicted about this whole mess as he. _Maybe it doesn't mean anything at all. _

* * *

><p>Sifting through her recent history he found constant reference to something called the <em>Lazarus Project. <em>A quick search brought up a sizable data packet of the same name containing dozens of video logs and medical reports, the earliest dating back to mere weeks after the attack on the _Normandy_. Was this what he was supposed to find? _I swear I've heard that name before. _He opened a file at random.

They were charts, much like the ones he had found in the research facility, only these ones were dated much earlier. Almost three years earlier. Were these hers? Skeletal scans, circulatory, muscular, neurological; there were all here, but many were incomplete. No. Not incomplete. No records were missing. It was as though parts of the subject itself were gone.

Frowning, he flicked through them, pausing when he reached the bone scintigraphy as something caught his eye. The bones had been fragmented. Enlarging the image, he saw there were thousands of hairline fractures running throughout the entire skeletal structure as though they'd been pieced back together like jigsaw puzzle. Here and there entire sections were missing. _Three years ago._ Skipping ahead, he called up records from a month later. The fractures were gone and most of the gaps were filled in, a smattering of blemishes on the scan the only evidence of any trauma.

He moved on to the neuro reports, focusing on the earliest of the scans. There wasn't much to look at, just a few glowing holos of what looked like charred meat. He wasn't sure he'd have been able to identify them at all if one of the cross-sections hadn't been labeled "temporal lobe". Opening a later log he saw the subject was now unrecognizable from the desiccated husk the record claimed it to be a mere six months ago. The characteristic wrinkles of the cortex were becoming clear and the whole mass had doubled in size. The scans continued on, the subject slowly growing larger as recognizable lobes began to form. Finally, fourteen months after the first scan was dated, the brain was pronounced fully-formed. Alenko shook his head. No way. No way could this be what it looked like.

Calling up the scans from the research base, he placed them side by side next to the _Lazarus_ report. The latter was missing that dark shape he'd noticed before, but aside from the one anomaly, they were identical, right down to the familiar scarring pattern on the occipital. No doubt remained that these were Shepard's; Dr. Chakwas had run a full scan on the commander's brain after the beacon seared its message directly into it. All three of them had gone over the results extensively, examining the damaged areas and analyzing the effects, Chakwas because it was her job, Shepard because it was her brain, and Kaidan because it was his fault. Ostensibly he'd attributed his interest to his medical training, suggesting any knowledge might be relevant in the field in the event that they ran into more Prothean artifacts, but both women were remarkably astute and he was pretty sure he'd fooled neither.

Ok. So what? Cerberus had access to the blueprints of the original _Normandy_, was it really so hard to believe they could have access to Shepard's medical records? Hell, they'd had access to Shepard herself for the three years; they could have taken these and mocked up this whole report at any point. But why bother? _There's something here I'm not seeing, _he thought. _Or something you don't want to see, _chimed in that irksome knot in his gut. He pinched the bridge of his nose. _What's more likely? _it persisted. _That you and everyone around her were completely wrong about Shepard, that she faked her own death and deserted the Alliance to gallivant around the traverse with a boat full of murderers, mercenaries and malcontents, that she abandon the military that had been her entire life for over a decade to join up with the very people she had made it her mission to stop? Or that for the past three years she's been manipulated by a dangerous terrorist organization? Which probably has everything to do with this file._

_Occam's razor, Alenko. Which hypothesis contains the fewest assumptions?_

Sighing, he got to his feet and resumed his pacing. _Let's review. Three years ago the _SSV Normandy _is attacked and destroyed by an unknown ship of unknown origin. While attempting to rescue Flight Lieutenant Jeffrey Moreau, Lieutenant Commander Shepard is thrown from the ship, as per Moreau's eye-witness testimony, but not before sealing and launching the final escape pod containing said pilot. Shepard is pronounced missing in action by the Systems Alliance Navy. One month later she is officially declared dead and services are held on the Citadel. __At this time __all visible Cerberus activities cease, excluding one puzzling attack on the quarian migrant fleet. Roughly two years later, Shepard's presence is confirmed on _Freedom's Progress _by Tali'Zorah vas Neema. Also confirmed are two Cerberus companions. Sightings of Commander Shepard increase dramatically, coupled with reports of her association with Cerberus. Cerberus involvement personally confirmed on Horizon, Garrus Vakarian and Cerberus operative present. Shepard admits to putting together a team to stop the Collectors from abducting human colonists,. Accounts afterward vary wildly, but all confirm that months later the Omega 4 Relay is activated and Shepard reported to have entered. Hours later the relay activates a second time; Shepard returns. All reported Collector attacks cease. One can only assume she was successful. _

He stopped pacing and dropped back into a chair. Elbows on his knees, he ran both hands over his face again. _And just what part of all that sounds like anyone other than Shepard is calling the shots? _He had to admit, all of this did sound remarkably familiar. She got the job done, she always did. What exactly was he trying to prove here, anyway? That Cerberus didn't have Shepard wrapped around its little finger? For the first time since Alchera he was beginning to wonder who exactly was playing whom.

He picked up the 'tool again, opening up the video logs. _Miranda Lawson._ He vaguely recalled meeting her in person, but on Horizon he had been rather distracted. The first record had no accompanying visual feed and consisted of only of two lines:

"_Commander Shepard has been recovered. The _Lazarus Project _will proceed as planned."_

He scowled at the display. _I'm not sure that can possibly be more ominous than it sounds._ The next log began with a shot of Lawson addressing the camera.

"_I was originally disheartened by the condition of the remains recovered by Dr. T'Soni, but upon closer examination we have been able to isolate several viable samples and more intact brain tissue than originally projected. As can be seen in the accompanying scans, the temporal and occipital lobes are amazingly well preserved. I believe we have sufficient tissue for a full reconstruction with minimal memory loss."_

_Liara?_ _What? What had..._ The last time they had spoken had been after the services. Neither had been especially loquacious and they'd not done much more than exchange mumbled pleasantries. He hadn't been capable of much more, nor had been since the attack – or for quite some time afterward, if he was to be perfectly honest – and he had assumed neither had she. In retrospect, however, he wondered if what he had initially dismissed as shock had in fact been something else entirely. Anger welled up in his chest. Judging by the time-stamp of the file, Cerberus would have already contacted her for whatever it was they wanted. _Recovery_. God. She had given Shepard to Cerberus. His head had found its way into his hands again and the point behind his eyes had begun to ache.

In the background, Lawson's voice continued:

"_The reconstruction process is painstaking, but we must move slowly for fear of damaging the delicate neural pathways. Our orders were clear: make Commander Shepard who she was before the explosion – the same mind, the same morals, the same personality. If we alter her identity in anyway, if she's somehow not the woman she used to be, the _Lazarus Project_ will have failed." _

The view shifted to reveal a broken form on a surgical slab. The remains of what had once been armor cradled the nearly unidentifiable shape of a human figure, charred flesh visible through cracked and missing plates. He watched, stomach churning, as the camera performed a slow, agonizing pan of the desiccated form. The blood drained out of his face as the view seemed to linger on the scorched N7 insignia. _No. _He shook his head furtively. _I'm not buying it._

Dreading what he would find there, he jumped to a later log.

The shot began with a reading from a cardiopulmonary monitor. It chirped softly in time with the beat of an unseen patient's heart. After a pause a voice interceded.

"_There. On the monitor. Something's wrong."_

The graph spiked sharply and the rhythm increased in tempo.

"_She's reacting to outside stimuli. Showing an awareness of her surroundings. Oh my god, Miranda, I think she's waking up."_

The camera pulled back to show the room from before, the familiar form stirring. The view was partially blocked by a white-clad woman moving to restrain the prone figure; what could be seen of the subject was heavily bandaged with snatches of skin peeking through the gaps in the dressing, raw and pink like uncooked meat. A swaddled hand flailed clumsily as the woman in white swore at her companion.

"_Damnit Wilson! She's not ready yet. Give her the sedative! Shepard – don't try to move. Just lie still. Try to stay calm."_

The hand gripped the side of the table as the figure struggled to rise, panicked breathing joining the sounds of chiming equipment.

"_Heart rate still climbing. Brain activity is off the charts. Stats pushing into the red zone. It's not working!"_

"_Another dose. Now!" _snapped the woman, moving aside to reveal an achingly familiar face almost unrecognizable as it contorted in pain. As he looked on in horror, she convulsed once then fell back to lie still on the table.

Kaidan turned away, unable to watch further. The voices continued pitilessly as he squeezed his eyes shut and tucked his chin to his chest, curled in on himself to ward off the sounds.

"_Heart rate dropping. Stats falling back into normal range. That was too close. We almost lost her."_

"_I told you your estimates were off. Run the numbers again."_

The log faded into silence but he remained unmoving, head bowed and eyes clamped shut. Finally remembering how to breathe, he inhaled shakily and allowed his eyes to drift open. They immediately fell upon his desk display and he saw that it was well into the first shift once more. She would be out of surgery by now. Powering down the band, he got to his feet.

He was aware that he was being irrational. He was aware that if anything had gone wrong, if she hadn't made it, he would be the first one alerted. He was doing that a lot today, he noted distantly as he made for the door, disregarding perfectly good cognizance in favor of self-indulgent neuroses. Such introspection would be of more use were he in a more rational mindset. As it was, he was not, and therefore needed to see for himself that she was alive, rationality be damned.

Without conscious thought or recollection of how he got there, he found himself at the door of the medical bay. He hesitated as it slid silently open. The room was empty, save for the still form resting on the far bed. Feeling like an interloper on his own ship, he quietly crossed to the cot and its occupant. Her chest rose and fell all but imperceptibly and the EKG beeped in time with her slowed heart. Even in the dim light she was distressingly pale. The glow from the monitors cast long shadows over her face, highlighting the raised pattern of scars tracing delicately up one cheek. Without the obstruction of her armor, he could see the faint web of lines continued down her neck to disappear below her collar.

She looked so small, unarmored and exposed, dwarfed both by the surrounding equipment and the enormity of the expectations laid upon her. _Did it ever occur to anyone to wonder if we are asking too much of one person?_

* * *

><p>She came to completely and utterly disoriented. <em>This is getting really old, <em>she thought peevishly. Awareness took its sweet time in returning, but eventually put in an appearance as she laid still, eyes firmly shut. She was in a bed, a medical cot judging by the plastic mattress and paper-thin sheets. _Good, beds are good, and not often to be found in reactor cores or batarian prisons. _The whirs and bleeps of machinery sang softly, accompanied by the deep resonance of an engine humming steadily through the decks. She smelled disinfectant. _Shipboard med bay, _she analyzed. _Alliance? FTL engaged. No restraints, likelihood of being under arrest slightly dimini—_

Her sit-rep was interrupted by the soft sounds of footfall.

* * *

><p>With a blur of motion she was on her feet, seizing his wrist and spinning him around to slam into the EKG still cheerily broadcasting the now accelerated rate of her heart. "Ooof," he protested in surprise and as the air was forced from his lungs.<p>

Behind him he heard her inhale sharply in what may have also been surprise.

His surprise had less to do with the fact that he currently found himself with his face mashed into an uncomfortably unyielding surface, one arm twisted painfully behind him while the other was pinned forcefully to his side, and more from the speed and efficiency at which these events had occurred. _This coming from the woman who could barely walk a few hours ago, _he mused wryly.

Her surprise no doubt had more to do with the realization of exactly whose face it was that she was currently mashing into an uncomfortably unyielding surface and less from the action's speed or efficiency.

After stunned second he felt her grip loosen and the pressure leave his back as she released him. He turned to see her stumbled back, eyes screwed shut with the heel of a bandaged hand pressing to her forehead like she was trying to keep its contents from spilling out. She swayed perilously and he caught her as she pitched forward, his chin narrowly avoiding collision with the top of her head.

"Easy," he murmured as he took her weight. His arms caught under hers in an awkward embrace as he took pains to avoid her injured side. Her skin felt hot and feverish through the fabric of the medical gown and he was suddenly very aware of how thin that barrier was.

"You know," she mumbled into his shoulder, "I'm getting really sick of waking up in foreign medical facilities."

Releasing a breath that had been pent up for far longer than just the past few hours, he felt the tension ease from his shoulders as he supported her. _Unbelievable_. The urge to kiss the top of her head was incredibly compelling. He settled instead for a chuckle, the puff of air sending her hair flying. "A hazard of the job, I'm afraid." _So much better than the alternative._

"Beats not waking up at all," he heard her mutter, giving voice to his own morbid thoughts. His arms tightened around her reflexively. She lingered for a moment longer, head resting against his chest and breath tickling his arm, then sighed and straightened. She glanced down, appearing to only just now notice the flimsy gown doing its best to cover as little of her as possible, and then jerked her head up to scan the room. A look of something like panic flit briefly across her face before taking refuge behind a wall of resignation. She scrubbed her hands roughly over her face. "What day is it?"

"Day?" He swallowed his initial reflex to supply the date as he realized that wasn't what she was asking. He felt his chest constrict. _What have they done to her?_ "It's been hours, Shepard," he reassured her. "You've only been out a few hours."

She let out a ragged breath and leaned back against the cot, hands braced on either side. Though steadier than before, she was still far too pale, the fine lattice of scars standing out in stark relief. The overall impression of the reanimated undead was not helped by the hollow cheeks or the dark circles under her eyes, nor by the fact that her hair was apparently taking advantage of her distracted state to make a mad bid for freedom. Noticing his gaze, she favored him with one of her lopsided grins. In that moment he decided she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. "You look like hell," she said conversationally.

That smile was infectious. "Likewise."

"That good?" she asked glibly. "Because I _feel_ like death warmed over."

_Shattered plates pulled aside to uncover the blackened mockery of a human form. Face in ruins, familiar planes and valleys now virtually unidentifiable. Cracked remains of lips parted over teeth somehow undamaged, aiming the grotesque imitation of a smile towards the harsh overhead florescents. The sharp crack of snapping of bones. _

Her face fell as he his own smile inverted and what was left of the blood in his face quit the field. "Ah, sorry, I –"

He shook his head and held up a placating hand. "Forget it Shepard. It doesn't matter," he decided. Not now. Not anymore.

They regarded at each other silence for some time, until the increasing slump in her posture finally caught his eye. Reluctantly he turned away and strode over to the supply cabinets. Rummaging through the shelves, it took a moment to find the bottle he was looking for. He selected two tablets and walked back to the now quiet curious-looking spectre.

She arced a questioning eyebrow.

"Sedatives," he supplied. "You need to be resting."

Frowning, she shook head and stepped back. "No. I think I've spent enough time unconscious in the past two days, thank you." She crossed her arms in front of her, not quite managing to hide the tell-tale waver in her stance.

He wasn't fooled. "Please, Shepard. You were in surgery for nearly six hours while they dug shards of your own hard-suit out of some very sensitive and difficult to replace organs. Even you need some time to recover from that." He reached forward and took her hand. She watched unresisting as he placed the capsules on her swathed palm and gently curled her fingers around them.

She regarded her closed fist for a long moment, face inscrutable, then her eyes flicked up to meet his. She held his gaze for a longer moment, then without breaking eye-contact placed the pills on her tongue and swallowed deliberately. "Happy?"

"Yes." He nodded to the cot and she obligingly sat down, pulling her legs up after her. He turned to leave, but a hand snaked out and caught his.

"Hey." He turned back to look at her, but her face was hidden by a curtain of unruly hair. "Thanks for coming after me," she said softly.

He gave the hand a gentle squeeze. "Anytime, Shepard."

* * *

><p>Much later Alenko was wishing he'd taken sedatives himself. After staying with her until she'd fallen asleep, he had decided it was high time he followed suit and made his way back to his cabin. His subconscious, however, had other ideas. The images from the <em>Lazarus Project<em> flickered across his eyelids in grim slideshow each time he dared closed them and that dispassionate voice echoed hollowly in his ears. Finally abandoning his efforts to sleep, he turned back to his report for Hackett. _Lazarus_ and all. Steeling himself, he brought up the files, starting from the beginning.

Log followed log as the detached narration persisted. He forced himself to watch as he knew she would have. He watched as the skeleton was painstakingly reassembled and reinforced, connecting tissue reattached and rejuvenated. After weeks of meticulous reconstruction, the sound of a heartbeat joined the emotionless voice, weak and slow at first, but growing in strength with each hard-won pulse.

The reports after that were a blur. He only half-listened as the operative continued, his mind reeling as it tried to reconcile the impossible. He felt numb. He felt sick. He felt -

The screen had become unreadable, wavering uncontrollably and he belatedly noticed it was his hands that were trembling. He let his head drop into them, the pulse pounding in his ears drowning out the clinical narration. The tempest in his head howled insensibly as he stared unseeing through deck.

Time slipped past unnoticed as he sat in quiet turmoil. The records continued, but he had long-since stopped listening. His thoughts spun themselves into white noise, but he had long-since stopped listening to them, too.

"_Oh my god, Miranda, I think she's waking up."_

"You probably don't want to watch the next part," a soft voice interrupted, "it's pretty grisly."

Startled, he looked up to find the real-life, flesh and blood Shepard leaning heavily against the open doorway. He shot to his feet. "Shepard -"

"Stupid of me, really," she continued, "leaving those on there. All the crap I have on Cerberus and of course _that's_ the file you open."

"Shepard, you -" he started.

"Can't blame you for being curious, but you won't want to watch that one on a full stomach."

He took a step towards her. "I've seen it, Shepard."

"Ah." She looked down at her hand, grip white-knuckled around the raised door frame. "It's not fake. Not –" she took a breath, "not that bit, anyway. That part I remember."

"Shepard, I -" _What? What, exactly? What could I possibly say? I – believe you? Yes, and? I – am sorry? Don't stop there. Wish none of this had happened? Know none of it should have? Keep it up, Alenko. Should have known better. Should have done better. Should never have left. _"—'m an ass."

There was that contagious grin. "I know."

He ran a hand through his beleaguered hair. "That... probably went without saying, didn't it?"

The grin took on a rather smug countenance and spread a bit further across her face.

He checked a sigh. "Right. Yes. Without saying. Good. And speaking of things that should go without saying, you should not be up. You'll never recover if you don't get some sleep."

She shrugged, the flimsy gown rustling faintly. "I was cold. Besides, I don't sleep much these days."

"Don't, or can't?" he asked shrewdly, gathering up the cover from his bed.

She didn't answer as he crossed back to her, draping the fabric over her bare arms. He allowed his hands to rest on her shoulders, reveling in the impossibility of her standing before him. "Beacon nightmares?" he asked quietly.

A shadow crossed over her face. Eyes roaming the cabin, she shrugged again. "Sometimes. Usually just your average run-of-the-mill unpleasantness. My subconscious has had plenty of fuel as of late, Freud would have had a field-day. But you can't do what we do and see what we see and expect to sleep soundly at night. Or deserve to. I'd say I'll sleep when I'm dead, but that didn't work out so well either."

"_Shepard_-"

"Damnit, I'm sorry," she gestured in frustration. "Fuck, my sense of tact is even worse than it used to be. I don't... I didn't... I don't want it to be like this. Because this," she gestured around them, at life, the universe and everything, "_this_ is shitty. And I don't know what anyone expects me to do about it. I'm one fucking person and I'm tired of dealing with the galaxy's bullshit. And what the hell are you grinning at?"

Instead of answering, he leaned forward and kissed her. After the briefest of pauses she reciprocated, her hands finding their way to his collar, tugging him closer and letting the cover fall away. Murmuring disapprovingly, he caught the fabric as it slid through his fingers and pulled it tight around her shoulders, holding it secure. He felt her lips twitch upwards against his in a grin to match his own. "God, I missed you," he murmured without breaking contact.

"I missed you, too," she sighed. "You'll -"

"_Commander? We're ten minutes out from the Citadel." _The helmsman's voice tore through the cabin. _"I've got a message for you from Admiral Hackett and Ambassador Anderson is on the line."_

Lips still entwined, Kaidan let out an exasperated groan and Shepard chuckled. He took a moment to mourn the impossibility of conducting the rest of his life thus engaged and with great reluctance broke away. "Acknowledged, _Adams,_" he responded, failing to keep the edge out of his tone. _What was it with pilots and abysmal timing? _Shepard laughed again.

"Funny thing about ships, they don't run themselves," she supplied sagely, relinquishing her grip on his shirt.

"We'd be out of the job if they did," he sighed. "Alright, back to the infirmary with you. I have a boat to run and you can't wander around the Citadel dressed like that."

She grimaced. "Mmmm, tough choice; go pant-less or wear the Phoenix Armor. You know, it's not that cold out there, I think I'll take my chances."

"Out." He shooed her out of the room while making only a token effort to banish the image of the spectre stomping through the Presidium in Alliance dress blues and no pants. The day was looking up.

"You'd think Navy med bays would be more comfortable, given the amount of time they spend occupied," she observed as they moved through the corridor.

"And I suppose Cerberus infirmaries are more cozy?" he asked without heat, hand at the small of her back guiding her into the mess area. With the other he snagged a handful of protein bars in passing and pressed them into her hand.

"Much. Complete with posters of kittens encouraging you to hang in there. It also helps if you know where the doc hides her booze." She made a face, but accepted the tasteless rations without comment.

He raised an eyebrow. "Well, then I can see why recruitment is up."

"Actually," she smirked, "I hear it just took a substantial hit. Rumor has it the Illusive Man lost an entire boat full of crazies, not to mention his four billion credit science experiment. Too bad he can't report the theft to the Alliance." She nonchalantly twirled one of the bars through her fingers.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm not hearing this."

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, spare me. TIM had all the psych reports in the galaxy warning him of what he was getting himself into, and you of all people should be familiar with my well-documented propensity for stealing ships. Just think of it like a severance package."

He sighed. He was doing a lot of that today. Had it always been like this? _Probably. _He eyed the former commander as she strode past curious Alliance personal wearing little more than an over-sized shirt as though it was a full set of armor. _Definitely._ "You mean to tell me that you stole a prototype warship from the most dangerous and spiteful terrorist organization currently harassing known space, and you're actually _using_ it? To tool around the galaxy?"

"Yeah, well, they're more likely to just blow me out of the sky than to court-marshal me, so it's win-win as far as I'm concerned. At the very least it's less paperwork." She stopped as they reached the med bay door.

"And how do you know they didn't build some kind of fail-safe or self-destruct mechanism into the ship?" he persisted.

She waved dismissively. "If they had they'd have used it already."

"Not if you're still doing the job they brought you back to do," he pointed out, crossing his arms in front of him.

"Well," she replied, "I could use someone to give the SR2 a once-over, if you're offering."

He felt the corners of his mouth twitch. "Is this you being coy? I'll admit, I never can tell with you."

She scowled at him. "Spectres don't _do_ coy. It's on the list of discouraged tactics. Right up there with precision orbital strikes."

He held up his hands palms first in an appeasing gesture. "My mistake, my mistake. I hope your crew has learned from your shining example, though I'd still be worried about leaving them unsupervised overnight."

"Yeah," she agreed, "you know how it is, leave the terrorists alone for longer than an hour and I'm likely to come home to a burned-out husk of a ship." She rolled her eyes in the universal gesture for "_what can you do?"_

"Well we wouldn't want that," he conceded. "I guess we'd better get you back before the whole station goes."

"Just like that, huh? I'm free to go? Not hauling me in? No court-marshals or finger-wagging? No fifty laps around the Citadel or two hundred push-ups? No paperwork?" She feigned disappointment. "Now I can't even get arrested in this town."

"Not today," he returned, "you're not getting out of saving the galaxy that easily." The grin faded from his face and he glanced away, eyes avoiding hers. "Look," he began, his fingers finding their familiar place buried deep in his hair, "I don't pretend to know where you've been for the past three years. I'm not sure I'm ready to believe this _Lazarus_ report, and it _kills_ me to think of you running around the traverse with nothing more than a couple of Cerberus goons at your back." He caught himself staring at his feet like a petulant child and forced his gaze up to meet her awaiting one. "But I know _you, _I know you're doing what you feel you have to. I just needed -" _a smack to the head "- _to remind myself that. That I know that you would never run from a fight. That I know you would never fake your own death, you would never join up with a bunch of xenophobic terrorists, and you would never desert the Alliance." _Or me. _"And I know that wherever it is that you've been, you were there because you needed to be." Reaching out he took her hand. "And I'll just have to trust your judgment."

Her throat worked as she stared down at their clasped hands, as though she were having trouble processing what she was seeing. Finally she managed to find her voice. "I... appreciate that, Kaidan."

* * *

><p>Joker met them in the <em>Normandy's <em>entryway, face dour and posture defensive. They faced off in silence, his expression migrating through a myriad of emotions, hers an impenetrable mask, as the temperature in the small chamber dropped noticeably. Just when Alenko was beginning to wonder if he should go the pilot snorted and looked away, eyes flicking to give the commander a once-over. "You should have told me you were catching another ride home, Shepard. Mine's still nicer."

She narrowed her eyes, but her tone was even. "I was running late, I didn't want you to miss your curfew. I'd hate for you to have your allowance docked."

"I don't get an allowance."

"And you wonder why."

He gave another snort. "No I don't." With that he turned and trundled back through decon. "Oh yeah," he called, "there's a visitor for you in the debriefing room. Some admiral or other. Didn't catch his name. Might not want to keep him waiting, though."

"Pilots; can't live with them, can't let the state-of-the-art artificial intelligence fly their ship without them. Oh, wait, yes I _can,_" she bellowed after him. Suppressing a grin she turned to Alenko. "Well Commander, it's been a pleasure as usual. Thanks for the lift." She hesitated a moment before the airlock, then nodded curtly and turned away. Reluctantly he did the same, slowly making his way back down the platform towards his own awaiting ship. He hadn't gone more than a dozen paces before her voice rang out after him. "Kaidan."

Pausing mid-stride, he glanced back to see her stopped in the hatchway, a hand on the frame and one foot already inside. She didn't face him as she spoke. "That offer doesn't have an expiration date," she called. "In case you suddenly decide you want to go tooling around the galaxy in a stolen terrorist warship."

His soft smile went unseen as she continued through the airlock, his murmured reply drifting across the docking port as the hatch closed silently behind her.

"Take care, Shepard."


End file.
